Tarpon Under the Moon

I had another "flood tide" fishing trip set up for this morning, this time with Dale Bullard who has fished with me a few times in the past.  We met at the Atlantic Seafood dock at sunrise and with a bright full moon overhead,  headed up to fish the outside of Tiger Island with topwater lures as the tide crept in.  There was a lot of bait action but we had no real takers on the mullet pattern.  As we were fishing some flooded oysters both Dale and I noticed something big was busting bait at the point of some marsh grass.  I had initially thought it was dolphin but when we we saw something long with pointed fins we knew they were Tarpon.  We dropped an anchor at the point and within minutes saw that the Tarpon were rolling and busting bait right behind the boat.  Dale was casting the largest top water lure I had and within minutes he had a strong (I mean STRONG) hookup, and FISH ON!  The big 70lb Tarpon came out of the water shook his head then dove deep.  Dale's rod bent over and the drag ripped out and... FISH OFF!  Boy that was exciting!  We continued to fish the pod and had a few fish look seriously at the lure but had  no more takers.  We began to check the flooded grass and even though conditions were perfect again, we saw no fish.  As we were motoring to another grass flat we could see fish striking in the river and seagulls were diving to pick up the pieces.  Dale grabbed the lure rod again and within a few casts was hooking up with hard fighting Bluefish.  He had one on and we're not sure if it was another Tarpon or a big Blue because it dove deep and snapped the 17lb leader!  Dale picked up a couple of more Blues then we continued on our way in search of Reds.  All of my grass flat spots looked amazingly perfect but there were no fish!  But we ended up having a good time out on the water and counted it as another great day of fishing at Amelia Island!